Once I was out of the Christian music industry,
I realized a lot of the damage that was done
while I was in it.
Music has historically been one of the most
prominent and accessible forms of worship
in Christianity.
Music is a unifier that can transcend
culture, language and distance.
But what happens when that experience gets commodified?
Enter the contemporary Christian music industry.
Emerging as a genre in the late 60s,
musician Larry Norman pioneered contemporary Christian music
as we know it today.
He married his rock n roll style with a spiritual,
Jesus-loving message and brought Christian
music mainstream, kind of.
Since then, CCM has grown into a multi-million
dollar industry, encompassing nearly every
musical style but united in one lyrical theme,
praising the Lord.
Between publishing, radio play, licensing music to churches and live shows,
this multifaceted industry is not slowing down.
Major artists continue to sell out arenas,
headline major festivals and even appear
on the Ellen Show.
Which is a whole thing...
I was raised on Christian music.
I know pretty much all the words to every
DC Talk song, Switchfoot, Reliant K, Newsboys...
Not to brag.
But as I got older, I realized that as a queer Christian,
a lot of this music and the artists behind it
would not be welcoming or affirming of who I am.
So I set out to check in with the industry as it stands today.
In an industry that's built on faith,
with the product being a deeper connection to
God through music, who is being championed
and who is being left behind?
We all know Nashville is Music City,
but it's not just country music they're exporting.
Nashville is home to the majority of Christian
artists, labels and publishing companies.
It's a uniquely positioned city at the intersection
of Bible Belt ideology and entertainment sensibilities.
My first stop is at the home of Lauren DeLeary.
Lauren and her sister performed in a Christian
pop band called Love Collide.
They were Juno Award-winning, touring artists with three studio albums.
Recently, Lauren began deconstructing her faith
and pinpointing the ways her beliefs
weren't compatible with the pressures of the
Christian music industry.
Being in the Christian music industry,
obviously you have to adhere to purity culture,
especially as girls.
It's this weird fine line between, like,
you have to obviously look cool,
but also not be like revealing.
I remember one time we were doing a show.
I lifted my hands in worship
and there was a picture where you can see like
this much of my stomach.
How dare you?
Yeah, I know, right?
I remember somebody tweeted at us and was like,
"How can you consider yourself a Christian?
How can you even say you're worshiping whenever
you're making your brothers in Christ
stumble with the skin that you're showing, with midriff?"
Is it true you can't jump and dance on stage?
Yeah, yeah.
People would complain about it.
Men would.
Right.
And they would say it was too sexual.
One of our singles, I Don't Want It, the music video for it,
we had paint dripping.
There's one point where I'm singing and so
there's paint dripping down on my face.
And we got complaints that it looks like semen.
Just out of curiosity, were these people...
Have we confirmed that they are aware of what semen...
Looks like?
Just, would be an interesting follow up
because as far as I know, if it is hot pink,
then you should see a doctor.
It's just wild to me, that kind of stuff.
Like to me, the modern Christian message right now is like,
"We are nothing, we are but worms!"
Putting ourselves down so much
and then looking at a holy God, like...
It's just all about this huge gap.
While worship music can feel incredibly cathartic,
the content of most popular songs is nonspecific
and tends to rely heavily on generic formulas
and a lot of times water metaphors.
So Lauren and I gave ourselves a challenge.
I think that we should write an "I Am The Worm" worship song.
Okay.
"Oh, but I am worm,"
sort of as an example of the cadence of Christian music
that is easy to match.
Yeah.
Let's see if we can do it.
Okay.
In 10 minutes.
Something like,
"Glory you are not the...
I will name my savior...
You reach out to me..."
Oh my gosh.
You're just doing it.
Okay, I love it.
I love it, okay!
Well, that's what...
No, it's perfect!
I'm not saying it's a great song.
I'm just saying that it's the structure of a worship song.
It's wonderful.
"Though I am not worthy..."
Or something like, "Glory, ever undeserving."
Ugh, it hurts me!
I'm sorry!
I'm thinking about, when do the hands go up in the service?
"And we will praise!"
Yeah, so.
"Holy father."
Oh, yeah.
It's sort of like a choose your own adventure
of Christian buzzwords.
Exactly!
Yeah, "You rescue me."
Oo, that's a good one.
Something.
"And we will praise you, holy father.
And we adore you.
You rescue me."
Alright, back to glory.
One more time!
"Glory.
No, I am not worthy..."
And that's when that harmony is full on.
That's when it's full on.
Guys, we have a minute to spare.
Christian worship song, nine minutes or less!
We did it!
And what's a song without a music video?
Lauren had shared some of the guidelines
from an imaging standpoint.
Modest, covered up, still trendy,
but in like a Mumford and Sons way, minimal movement.
We did our best.
"Glory, though I am not worthy.
New with every morning.
You shine down on me.
And we will praise you, holy father.
And we adore you.
You rescue me."
Let's write a song we care about!
Next!
So what do you want to write about?
What you sing is what you meditate on.
Yeah.
And it's like, if you're just singing over and over that you are unworthy,
that's your meditation.
To be honest, I don't think I've ever felt
like there would ever be a place for someone
like me in worship music.
Yeah.
Because I haven't seen it.
To me, it's kind of just the opposite of what we just did.
I would love to hear a worship song that's saying,
"I am worthy. I belong."
So we started writing.
And um...it took longer than nine minutes.
We took a break to get a fresh perspective.
Hey!
Hi.
Come on in.
This is Adam Palmer.
He's a songwriter, musician,
and former founding member of I Am They,
a pop-acoustic worship group.
After going through a divorce and enduring
scorn and criticism from his community,
Adam stepped away from the band.
He's since been on his own journey, navigating the industry
with his own progressive and inclusive faith.
I think without saying it,
the average Christian listener
wants the people on stage to be super Christian.
They've really got the faith thing down.
They're really dedicated and like,
"I read my Bible every single day and night."
They want that
so that they can project that, oh, that exists.
That it's attainable.
It's attainable and look, they've done it.
But really, I've found quite the opposite on the road.
Yeah.
Most people are struggling in their faith.
You don't have like a stable lifestyle.
So you're always kind of in this flux
of being confused with life.
So questions and confusion
is like part of the daily life when you're touring.
I've heard much talk about the names assigned
to different demographics that Christian music targets.
Yeah, it's real.
And I want to hear for myself.
There's like a family of people?
Yes, excluding the dad.
There's Becky, she's the mom
that is really spoken to about the lyric of,
I broke the heel off my shoe today,
and the kids are making me late,
and I have to clean up cheerios,
and blah blah blah.
And then you have Taylor, which is a teenage girl,
and she is targeted by heroes of modesty and purity.
They want to pour into her this ethic of
her sexuality needs to be this sacred prize.
And then what's the other demographic?
Austin.
It's the teenage boy.
He's listening to the hard rock bands like
Skillet and the tough Christian rock bands.
You want to be presented safe angst.
Safe angst?!
Yeah.
Please, kids practice angst safely.
Safely!
God-honoring angst.
The demographic focus is primarily based on it
reaching the mom.
Because she's the one in the car driving around the kids.
Yeah.
That's a fascinating implication as well.
Yeah.
Because it speaks into how we view gender roles.
Yup.
And the culture.
And what's the mom supposed to be doing?
Well, she's supposed to be raising the kids at home.
Right.
Doesn't leave a lot of wiggle room for like
the mom that's out hustling and is the breadwinner.
Yeah.
Like that not a thing.
Right.
So, yeah, it's very one dimensional.
For me, music is about finding community
through shared human experiences,
when a song gives voice to something you thought that
no one else could possibly understand.
But whose hearts are being touched
when the music is being written
for imaginary, picture-perfect people?
Whose stories aren't being heard?
I headed out to meet Ricky Braddy,
Lauren's friend from church.
Ricky has spent the majority of his life as a
professional worship singer and songwriter.
He competed on Season 17 of The Voice
and, frankly, has one of the best voices I've ever heard.
When I was like four and five years old,
my mom, dad, and sister would sing at the church,
and I would sit with my grandmother
and sing every single word that they were singing.
My mom homeschooled me so I could travel
with a Christian singing group when I was 16,
and that's when I realized,
this is what I want to do.
Ricky worked in almost every facet of the industry,
touring consistently with gospel groups,
singing backup for major artists,
and even writing and recording under a record deal.
But he found that being in the closet was stifling
his creativity and motivation.
He got off the road and accepted a position
as the music leader for a church worship team.
The pastor and I, we saw things differently,
voted differently, but we were able to mutually
respect each other and—
Did they know that you were gay?
He still believed, I guess, that it was there,
but I wasn't pursuing it,
any relationship or anything like that.
And so I knew that I needed to at least tell the pastor.
There was a part of me that hoped,
maybe naively,
that because of the relationship that I'd had
with the church for years,
that they would say,
"Okay, well, let's figure it out.
You know, we love you.
We appreciate your heart."
Anything like that.
And it was not the response.
So you were fired.
I was basically let go, yeah.
I was given the option, almost, to stay
and stay quiet,
but not the option to stay and be authentic and honest.
I've done a lot of session work here in Nashville,
mostly for Christian artists, like choral stuff.
I'm now not called for those things anymore.
Our second to last interview
was with a major Christian music label.
We had a fine experience filming,
but after we left it became clear that they were not
comfortable with some of the questions I asked.
Hint, it was the gay ones.
Following a polite and respectful discourse,
we've opted not to include the interview.
But I won't deny that it's frustrating
not to be able to have an open dialogue,
and it's hurtful that this interview
is perceived to have been controversial.
Honestly, we didn't really learn anything especially new.
There wasn't a major reveal in this interview.
The only thing I can think of
is that I asked about representation
in the Christian music industry,
and if there was space for a gay artist.
And the answer that I received was basically like,
"I don't know.
To be determined.
We don't talk about it.
It doesn't really come up,"
which, honestly, I don't think is totally true.
But that was the answer, and we moved on.
And there were other questions that were asked as well.
So there was a whole phone chain of freak out
because I asked a question about representation
and inclusion.
I think that they don't want to be included in this story.
And by not being included, I think that already speaks
volumes to what we've heard from other people.
It's just pretty sad to think that
someone walked away from the conversation we had
and was like, I think this could be a problem,
because the question isn't the problem,
it's the fact that you're not having the conversation.
It's the fact that you're complicit in this exclusion.
That's the problem.
We are on our way right now
to talk with Dan from Jars of Clay.
He was the lead singer.
If you paid attention to contemporary Christian music
at all growing up,
like other cool kids like me,
then, you know that Jars of Clay was a huge band.
They were staples of the Christian music industry.
I'm curious about what a long career
revealed to him about the nature of the industry.
I'm Dan Haseltine and I am the singer for
the band Jars of Clay.
You were a pretty big band.
We had a good run, I would say.
We toured for about 22, 23 years.
If you're reading the bio, it would say,
multi-platinum, three time Grammy-winning band,
Jars of Clay.
Same.
Yeah, you know.
My bio too.
In 2014, Jars of Clay faced backlash
after Dan sent out a handful of tweets questioning
why people were so adamantly opposed to gay marriage.
LifeWay and like all the outlets that sold Christian music
had pulled our Jars of Clay stuff off the shelves.
We had been disinvited from a bunch of the
music festivals and things that we were supposed to
do that year.
Christian Radio had pulled our music off.
They weren't gonna play it anymore.
It was the backlash of the Christian community
because I was asking questions about
how we treat the LGBT community.
The fact that I was asking the questions
meant that we were unsafe now.
That was the moment where I was just like,
okay, I guess we're not going to have this
conversation with this community of people.
And yet, I look at it and I go,
I think we were asking the right questions.
I don't regret pushing that conversation forward.
There weren't any other Christian artists
that were having that conversation.
There aren't.
There still really aren't, you're right.
There really aren't.
Yeah.
And it's just unfortunate because
the other thing I learned from it was just
there's so many people that have been
hurt really badly by the church.
Are there other artists
that are sort of where you are
but won't say anything publicly because—
Yeah, I've got a list.
I'll just—
No, no, no.
No, I'm kidding.
I just mean that surely you can't be the only person
who is questioning.
A lot of artists that are still in the spotlight,
they believe that way, but they're really
not allowed to say it.
At some point the value of an artist
comes from telling the truth to lift another person
up rather than keep a person oppressed.
It makes me so sad because I think of music
that was so there for me,
that felt so comforting.
Yeah.
I almost have to redo some of my childhood memories
because there are artists that now
I think back on the struggles I was going through
that I don't know would be there for me.
I just have to wonder, who was it for?
Was it for me in the closet?
Like, who was it for?
Would they have rathered that?
Yeah, wow.
Yeah.
And I don't know.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry, actually.
I really am.
You don't need to apologize.
I know, well.
But as just a— yeah.
It pains me that that's how the story plays out.
If you could make sort of a prediction,
or maybe a speculation, on where you see the
Christian music industry going and perhaps
what would your hope be?
I think there will be church music
and that's sort of the worship music that exists.
And then I think the artists
that want to look at the world and describe it,
they're just finding their space
amongst all the other artists in general music,
which maybe is how
it always should have been.
The fact that we don't have a Christian
artist speaking to the powerful journey of coming out,
coming into yourself,
who God created you to be,
that there isn't that...
Like, I'll buy that album.
Right.
You know, I want to hear that story.
Yeah.
And maybe it's not on a Christian label.
They might not be ready for that,
but it won't make it any less divinely inspired
if it finds its way into the world.
I miss worship music.
My goal,
if, you know, I'm going to start writing worship songs again
is to write songs that I resonate with,
and that people in my church could sing,
and you can sing and not be stepping over
bad theology or damaging messages.
Sadly, I think the bridge was burned just by coming out,
but it's met with an overwhelming
amount of peace knowing that
I am exactly where I need to be.
Everything that I create, music and otherwise,
is going to come from a place of complete honesty
and oneness with myself and my creator.
We know the resilience of the human spirit.
We will always find a way.
And I think that's what I'm excited and hopeful for.
And that's what I've learned in my time in Nashville.
And also letting people know if you're gay,
you can still listen to Jars of Clay.
Great, yeah.
Don't worry. It's okay.
It's true, yes.
You never left me
and I believe I'm worthy,
and you couldn't be closer.
I see the light breaking through,
so I'm gonna break free.
Oh your love,
wide as a river for me.
Oh your love,
deeper than an ocean rising for me.
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